Friday, 16 March 2007

75,000 Affected by WellPoint Data Loss

Health insurers, Wellpoint (WLP), has sent notices to 75,000 members of its Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield unit in New York that it has lost a disc that contains all the medical information of these cusutomers.

Empire has started to send e-mails to customers saying that personal information like their names, Social Security numbers, health plan identification numbers and descriptions of medical services back to 2003 is missing.

As a compensatory measure, the company is planning to offer free credit monitoring for consumers who are apprehensive of identity theft.